local bands

Sometimes, in doing these weekly local music reviews, I discover just how wrong I can be.

Such is the case with this week's review of the first full-length release by Cincinnati's Old City. Essentially, it boils down to a classic case of 'don't judge a book (or an album) by its cover' - literally.

It's been just over 14 months since Cincinnati's heavy-duty rock band Mad Anthony was in a terrifying accident outside of Evansville, IN that brought their van, and their tour, to a screeching halt.

Guitar player Adam Flaig escaped with minor injuries while lead singer Ringo Jones suffered several head lacerations. Most affected by the collision was drummer Marc Sherlock who sustained a C-4 vertebrae fracture along with serious cuts and bruises and spent time in a cervical collar. The tour van was destroyed as was some of the band's equipment with Sherlock's drum kit taking the heaviest damage.

So what does a band do when they find themselves standing on the side of the road, wondering what just happened and considering themselves lucky to still be alive?

clast, as in iconoclast, is the name of the new album from Cincinnati's umin, and the title could not be more appropriate.

The word 'clast' comes from the Greek klastos meaning broken -- and those familiar with umin's work will immediately recognize how poignant this title is. At first listen, the music feels hectic, agitated and, well, fragmented. This is because umin primarily composes his songs on the baritone ukulele. He then digitally samples, cuts, loops and stretches the pieces into a wild and immersive collage of sound. Even the song titles are often mere fragments of words.

With very little fanfare, Prim has released one of the best local pop recordings of the year.

When you take time to consider the roster of talent in this band, it is not surprising. Alessandro Corona [Krkgrd], Jake Langknecht [The Never Bird] and Ian Gullett [Diet Audio, Smasherman, Photo Electric] weave a delightful tapestry of soulful melodies, and they do this in conjunction with the amazing Molly Sullivan [No No Knots] who has quickly become one of the supreme voices and songwriters in Cincinnati.

I was profoundly confused when I first listened to Founding Fathers. Here is a band that lists, among their 'influences' such groups as Ween, Beck, Wilco -- and to which other reviewers had compared to Talking Heads. My first impression of Founding Fathers was of a band that makes booty-shaking, bone-deep funk that just doesn't wash off. The first track on their latest CD, a song called "Stop Drop and Roll," is magnificent good-time party music to be sure but -- Ween? Wilco? I wasn't getting it.

I have not had the opportunity to see the band live yet so... maybe I am missing something.

For those unfamiliar with the band Gazer, it may be best to describe them in their own words: "post-punk with the intensity of hardcore [and] inconsiderate blasts of noise."

Last October, when I started listening to Gazer's Phone Commercial EP, they quickly became one of my favorite local punk bands. The sound on Phone Commercial is reminiscent of the industrial Midwestern post-punk of the 90's like Big Black and Brainiac - but Gazer has managed to take that sound, intensify it, and make it significant to the 21st century.

With this review, my intention is to get you to take a few steps through the looking glass into a Hellraiser-like universe where pain is beauty, ugliness is music and noise is pleasure. Looming ominously in a filthy back-alley somewhere in this universe is the band Public Housing.

I am overjoyed by the fact that I am now starting to review some local bands' next releases - meaning that I have a better frame of reference to speak to an artists' music by being able to compare it to what they put out (and which I reviewed) last time around. This is no way implies that I feel that I have started to exhaust the roster of local musicians that are creating and putting out music. On the contrary, I think this reinforces the perception that the local music scene is a quite vibrant and very active animal.

My first 'comparative' review came this spring when I received an advance copy of Buffalo Killer's Heavy Reverie. In late June I got my hands on the soon-to-be-released 12" of new music from Gazer (the review for which will be coming in early August); and most recently I was able to score local electronic artist ADM's latest album Another Dying Motive.

Heavy Hinges has been described as "a sublime ruckus… a beautiful collision of rock, soul, gospel, and western." In truth, what Heavy Hinges is is a well-balanced assemblage of rock, pop, country and traditional music with roots that run quite deep into the music of gospel choirs, chain gangs and saloons. They have a reputation around town of putting on very powerful live performances and have established themselves as one of Cincinnati's must-see bands.

The group has just emerged from the studio with their debut album Mean Old City. Recorded by Matt Hueneman at Newport's Audiogrotto and mastered by Ashley Shepherd*, Mean Old City is the band's attempt to bottle some of that on-stage lightning.